When Scottish museum curator Geddes Simpson receives a polite but pointed letter from a Canadian activist requesting the return of a five-thousand-year-old totem pole, he assumes it’s a misunderstanding. After all, the Mackenzie Totem has stood in Stornoway for over two centuries — a symbol of exploration, not exploitation. But as the political winds shift and the Canada Together movement gains traction, Geddes is swept into a transatlantic tug-of-war over history, heritage, and who gets to tell the story.

From the windswept Hebrides to the powwows of Ontario, Totem is a sharply observed, darkly comic exploration of cultural identity, colonial legacy, and the absurdities of bureaucracy. As Geddes navigates schoolchildren, seagulls, fire alarms, and flirtations, he must confront uncomfortable truths — about the totem, about the past, and about what it really means to do the right thing.